What do I doooooo

This came across as rather panicky on my part.

For the record, I'm fine and will continue to be fine. My bird, however, is not, and she may potentially die a painful death, which is sucky.

My main question here is what do I do for her sake?

It is sad. My friend had a cockatiel and they are very nice animals. All I can do is advise you to look on websites and chat to other owners on twitter and see if you can come up with a solution there

If you can get it to sit still somehow you can lubricate the vent and try massaging the egg out.

when did she last lay an egg? the egg being crumpled and deformed says to me that she layed one of the eggs causing the problem, which is a good thing. the eggs need to come out as quick as possible because infection and shock is your biggest worry. try what BM said, but for god sake don't force the eggs out and don't break the shells as you do so, that can result in immediate death.

have a look here, 8th paragraph down, that could help. i had to link because for some stupid reason the site doesn't allow copy and pasting.

I fucking love how MA knows about this stuff. I just knew you would, dude.

I'd say failing that, and if you know it's in real pain and you can't afford to help it, quickly end its life? I used to have a ratty that developed an enormous, terrible tumour and looking back I wish I'd had the guts to kill it sometimes.

We assumed the crumpled and deformed egg was a result of a lack of calcium, since that seemed to be the problem every time she laid a bad egg before. And if I recall right, she laid that egg on Saturday night? So she should have laid another by now but it seems to be stuck and this was only really noticeable yesterday.

She won't let anyone's hands near her and we're trying not to stress her out any which is proving to be a problem. She has a nice warm bath in her cage, a soft fuzzy hut she's been squeezing into more frequently, cuttlefish bones, and I just did the bit with gatorade in the water. She seemed to be doing better than she was when I made this blog, but she's still making pained chirps and squawks from time to time as she makes her way around the cage and still hasn't passed the egg or expelled waste.

My mom's going to try and take her in tomorrow despite the fact that we really couldn't afford whatever the bill will be, so here's hoping my bird hangs in there until then and we aren't forced to pay up front.

STM, if all else fails that is what I planned on, but the problem is getting the rest of my family to agree it's the best choice. They'd sooner let something suffer for ages before it finally keeled over than put it down when we know there's something severely wrong but nothing we can do just because they don't want it gone.

It's always tough with pets, you're torn between your absolute love for them, and what is best. Good luck in all respects. Is there some way you can relieve her pain a little in the meanwhile? I'm just wondering if crushing up a paracetamol tablet into her food could help? It might be an idea to Google pain-relief for avians or something?

I did a little googling myself, apparently if you put your bird in a warm, quiet and dark environment, it relaxes the cockatiel which can in turn offer the potential of helping the bird pass the egg.

I'm guessing you've already done this with the cuttlefish bones but adding more calcium to the bird's diet might also help.

Giving birds human painkillers sounds like a really bad idea, haha. We don't have any herbal tea right now or I'd have given her some of that to drink, since I'm pretty certain avian painkillers need to be prescribed by a vet.

She seems more tired now than she did earlier this morning, but doesn't seem to be in as much pain WHICH I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I tried to emulate a warm and dark environment to the best of my ability for her since moving her and her cage doesn't really seem like an option.

There's plenty of additional calcium in her current diet so I think we're set on that bit.

good luck. to be honest a vet is your best bet anyway, birds are very fickle creatures as you probably know. and i feel for you about payment; vets, no matter how good and nice and competent they may be, are still absolutely rolling in money and don't mind forcing someone to pay through the nose for a loved pet. they play on that. hell, before i took up farming i originally wanted to be a vet, more money in it. but i didn't have the grey matter for it.

You could always ask your vet if you could pay the bill in instalments. Explain your situation and maybe take some art commissions so you can pay in little bits? If the vet has half a heart they'll at least consider it.

Also yeah, sorry I didn't know whether or not birds could take human medication. It was more of a question just in case you did know whether they could or couldn't, and hadn't thought of it yet. =P

Hopefully if she's in less sign of pain she's at least a little more comfortable at the moment.

So, good news, it seems like she's able to shit with ease again. However, there still isn't an additional egg in her cage, and my mom said she can still feel a bump. She's going to watch over Socrates for the night and if she's unable to pass the egg by morning we'll be taking her in to the vet to be on the safe side.

Thank you guys for your input, it's all highly appreciated. I can't thank any of you nearly enough.

good. at least she can pass waste in the mean time.